Matt Damon on Water Access and the Role of Women

Alongside his work on-screen, Academy Award-winner Matt Damon has committed the last 20 years to improving people’s access to clean, safe drinking water and sanitation through Water.org, which he co-founded alongside sanitation expert Gary White. Speaking at the TIME100 Davos Dinner, Damon noted that roughly 2 billion people globally lack access to safe water, with 3.4 billion lacking access to adequate sanitation. “It’s a massive problem,” said Damon, who through his foundation has set up a loan program for financing water and sanitation projects with the WaterCredit Initiative. In total, Water.org has reached 85 million people with its impact, providing loans to 15 million. “The beautiful thing is, this depends on the heroic efforts of these women,” said Damon, who explained that 90% of loans are given to women. Read more: https://time.com/collections/davos-2026/7346687/davos-dinner-damon-okonjo-iweala-lamm-mbatha/ Subscribe to TIME’s YouTube channel ►► http://ti.me/subscribe-time Subscribe to TIME: https://ti.me/3E3UCqt Get the day’s top headlines to your inbox, curated by TIME editors: https://ti.me/48dFNwQ Follow us: X (Twitter): https://ti.me/3xTVwSk Facebook: https://ti.me/3xWI2Fg Instagram: https://ti.me/3dO9Rcc